Hi.

Mar 18 Baked Tofu

I am venturing into the tofu business. We will see how this goes. So for anyone who has been wanting to try tofu, here is what I found. (I started with firm tofu.)

First I started out by opening the package and putting it in a cheese cloth and pressing (for 15-20 minutes) the tofu with a heavy book to try and squeeze any extra water out.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

I would cut all of these in half to help crisp them up.

Lightly grease a cookie sheet. Then I cut the tofu down the middle, and then into small chunks. Spread them out on the cookie sheet to give them room to expand a bit. It's not a big deal if they touch.

Let them cook for 15-20 minutes, then flip them. This helps them all get crisp and brown. give them another 15-20 minutes.

Once 30-40 minutes are up, let them sit for another 30 minutes to dry out. This is helpful because tofu needs a lot of seasoning or time to soak up flavor. Ideally if you have time and seasonings, use both!

Tofu after flipping them the first time.

I was talking with one of my vegan friends who cooks a lot with tofu and she recommends freezing the tofu after you have taken it out of the package, and once frozen cutting it up into pieces and cooking it from there. More on this next week. :)

The texture after baking and letting them sit to dry out is a little weird, but I would recommend marinating them in a bowl for 4-6 hours before throwing the rest of the ingredients together and cooking. That will help the flavor soak into the tofu.

Before seasoning they remind me of bland eggs.

For our first time making tofu, I wish we would have done a stir fry and soaked them in the seasoning and soy sauce before frying up the other veggies. I will be putting up a stir fry recipe with tofu in a while, but in the mean time feel free to look up another stir fry recipe.